Part 7 (1/2)

III The Descent of the Holy Ghost, on the left hand The Madonna and disciples are gathered in an upper chamber: underneath are the Parthians, Medes, Elaues

Three dogs are in the foreground--their mythic purpose the same as that of the two verses which affir in the journey and return of Tobias: naentleness given by the outpouring of the Spirit of Christ

IV The Church sailing on the Sea of the World St Peter co to Christ on the water

I was too little interested in the vague symbolism of this fresco to examine it with care--the rather that the subject beneath, the literal contest of the Church with the world, needed more time for study in itself alone than I had for all Florence

On this, and the opposite side of the chapel, are represented, by Si power of the Spirit of God, and the saving power of the Christ of God, in the world, according to the understanding of Florence in his time

We will take the side of Intellect first, beneath the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit

In the point of the arch beneath, are the three Evangelical Virtues

Without these, says Florence, you can have no science Without Love, Faith, and Hope--no intelligence

Under these are the four Cardinal Virtues, the entire group being thus arranged:--

A B C D E F G

A, Charity; fla from her head and hands B, Faith; holds cross and shi+eld, quenching fiery darts This symbol, so frequent in modern adaptation from St Paul's address to personal faith, is rare in older art C, Hope, with a branch of lilies D, Temperance; bridles a black fish, on which she stands E, Prudence, with a book F, Justice, with crown and baton G, Fortitude, with tower and sword

Under these are the great prophets and apostles; on the left,[Footnote: I can't findto Solomon, opposite] David, St Paul, St Mark, St John; on the right, St

Matthew, St Luke, Moses, Isaiah, Soloelists, St Thomas Aquinas, seated on a Gothic throne

Now observe, this throne, with all the canopies below it, and the complete representation of the Duona's school--later than Giotto's Gothic But the building in which the apostles are gathered at the Pentecost is of the early Romanesque mosaic school, with a wheelfrom the duomo of assisi, and square s from the Baptistery of Florence And this is always the type of architecture used by Taddeo Gaddi: while the finished Gothic could not possibly have been drawn by him, but is absolute evidence of the later hand

Under the line of prophets, as powers suures of the seven theological or spiritual, and the seven _ge_ological or natural sciences: and under the feet of each of theure of its Captain-teacher to the world

I had better perhaps give you the naht at once You will see presently why they are numbered in a reverse order

Beneath whom 8 Civil Law The Emperor Justinian 9 Canon Law Pope Cley Peter Loite 12 Dogy

St John Daustine 7 Arithoras 6 Geometry Euclid 5 Astronoic Aristotle 2 Rhetoric Cicero 1 Grammar

Priscian

Here, then, you have pictorially represented, the system of manly education, supposed in old Florence to be that necessarily instituted in great earthly kingdoms or republics, animated by the Spirit shed down upon the world at Pentecost How long do you think it will take you, or ought to take, to see such a picture? We were to get to work this ht be: you have probably allowed half an hour for Santa Maria Novella; half an hour for San Lorenzo; an hour for the ; and then it will be lunch time, and you mustn't be late, because you are to leave by the afternoon train, and

Well, of your half-hour for Santa Maria Novella,--after Ghirlandajo's choir, Orcagna's transept, and Cimabue's Madonna, and the painted s, have been seen properly, there will remain, suppose, at the utive you two , and three for studying Murray's explanations or ot, then--(and I observed, during lish visitors seldoiven you by Simon Memmi of human spiritual education In order to understand the purport of it, in any the sree, you must summon to your memory, in the course of these two minutes and a half, what you happen to be acquainted with of the doctrines and characters of Pythagoras, Zoroaster, Aristotle, Dionysius the Areopagite, St Augustine, and the e further observed the expressions and actions attributed by the painter to these personages, judge how far he has succeeded in reaching a true and worthy ideal of theeneral sche he supposes their peculiar doctrines properly to occupy For , to my much sorro an old person; and, to my much pride, an old-fashi+oned one, I have not foundor memory in the least increased by any of Mr Stephenson's or Mr

Wheatstone's inventions; and though indeed I came here from Lucca in three hours instead of a day, which it used to take, I do not think myself able, on that account, to see any picture in Florence in less tied to hurry ations connected with it

Accordingly, I have myself taken five weeks to see the quarter of this picture of Siood account of that quarter, and soment or two of those on the other walls: but, alas! only of their pictorial qualities in either case; for I don't oras, or Dionysius the Areopagite; and have not had, and never shall have, probably, any tiht only,--in what the French would express by their excellent word 'lueur,'--I a of the characters of Zoroaster, Aristotle, and Justinian But this only increases in ht to stand before the work of a painter, as not only a ian as to be able to conceive this scheme of picture, and write the divine lahich Florence was to live

Which Laritten in the northern page of this Vaulted Book, ill begin quiet interpretation of, if you care to return hither, to-